Fred Hollows Foundation

The Fred Hollows Foundation works for a world where no one is needlessly blind or vision impaired.

We work around the world so that no one is left behind, and in Australia we work tirelessly to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples can always exercise their right to sight and good health.

Our priority is to work with communities to improve their own eye health. We do this through life-changing surgeries and treatments, training doctors and health workers, generating new ideas, and pushing for change at all levels – from local to global.

Our organisation is inspired by Professor Fred Hollows (1929-1993). Fred was an eye doctor, a skilled surgeon of international renown and a social justice activist who championed the right of all people to high quality and affordable eye care and good health.

Fred believed local people were best placed to deliver health care to their communities. Working to continue Fred’s vision, The Foundation seeks to strengthen and sustain local systems, both internationally and with Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. We bring resources, knowledge and capacity building to partners who contribute their own knowledge, capabilities and resources. We work together to achieve our ambitious goal of ending avoidable blindness.

Collectively working in more than 25 countries world-wide, with the help of our supporters, we hope to build on our record of restoring sight to more than 2.5 million people.

The Fred Hollows Foundation has four bold and inspiring challenges:

• prioritising cataract which remains the biggest cause of blindness around the world;
• closing the gap in avoidable blindness and vision impairment between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and other Australians;
• addressing gender inequity in eye health so that women can access treatment; and
• finally eliminating trachoma, the leading infectious cause of blindness.

The Fred Hollows Foundation works in Africa (Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda and Cameroon), South Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Palestine, India), South East Asia (Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Loa PDR, Myanmar, The Philippines, Timor-Leste, Vietnam), The Pacific Region and Indigenous Australia.

For more information, visit www.hollows.org.